The more that I think about it, the more I like Onslaught being a stand alone figure, and not the torso of a Gestalt. That way the pieces needed to combine don't get in the way of his bot and alt-modes. I personally hope that at least 2 more of the Combaticons get updates (Vortex and Swindle would be cool, though even cooler if all 4 were updated). I think the SWAT theme that Onslaught has would work well for a team of Decepticons (kinda like the old car and vehicle sets that had a central theme).

that's true raven but he still would've been pretty cool as a gestalt. like updated swat versions of the combaticons or something like that

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There's no doubt in my mind that he, and the others, would have made an extremely awesome Gestalt (especially if the 4 others were Voyagers), though I'm not going to get upset that they won't be a gestalt (he is awesome enough on his own to make up for it). Hasbro is supposedley going to be doing a Gestalt at some point, but that could have been scrapped by now. All we really heard of the project that it was something they were planning, but hadn't started to work on it yet. Hopefully we get some info on that project, and the whole base/playset type thing dealing with bigger TF's (they weren't really clear what they were talking about) in the near future, as they sound interesting.

The period that came to be known as the "Combiner Wars" culminated in the developement of anti combiner technology that could force gestalt modes apart into their constituant bots. In the confusion that occured imediately after a forced seperation, many combiner team members were lost, on both sides of the fight. Even those teams that managed to keep all of their members had lost all strategic advantage, on the battlefield. The remaining combiner robots were rebuilt into improved forms, unencombered by their now useless gestalt technology.

Well, I am.
The movie is an update to the entire story, a reboot of the origin.

Classics\Universe is an update to G1 -the original characters recreated with modern techniques. If they are trying to keep the "spirit" of the character then Onslaught should be part of a combining team.

Megatron is a gun, Sunstreaker is a yellow sports car, Onslaught should be part of a gestalt.

I am in no way saying the toy is not awesome; it is the definition of awesome.
When did Hasbro get the rights to use the name Onslaught again?

I'm guessing somewhat recently. It seems they've been able to get a couple names back that they haven't used in quite some time. I honestly wouldn't be surprised to see a Universe updates of Warpath and Hound to show up at some point, as they are using Warpath's name for a Scout repaint in the movie line, and are using the Hound name for a Robot Heroe in the Universe line (though with Autobot in front of it).

Is it just me but haven't we had horrible problems with combiners selling well in the past?

*If they come in a single boxed-set they are too expensive to move well and end up clogging shelves. This is why Seacons were denied and almost every exclusive combiner from RID constructicons to Runination was shunned and horrible clearance.

*If they come as parts, you have distribution problems. Remember energon? The limbs come in one box (scouts) and the torsos come in another box (deluxe). There was never enough limbs and way to many torsos. That is why the Torsos were sent back to hasbro and repackaged at the dollar store. The fact that you could walk into most stores and not actually find 4 limbs to make a gestalt let alone the 4 CORRECT limbs. Imagine this spread so Limbs 1 and 2 were wave one and 3 and 4 were wave 2? Distribution nightmare.

The *ONLY* way it could be remotely successful is if they were hard as nails about distributing 4 limbs per torsos all in the same box. And all in the same wave. Which basically means wave 1 for Classics would have to be BRUTICUS + 1.

I honestly do not want to ask Hasbro to try the same thing that has horribly failed again and again. I don't want them to do anything which isn't 100% good for the shelves and the franchise. Combiners, like Prime trailers are bad business.

I can see how Onslaught not being a combiner could be worked into a Botcon story. It's not unprecedented either; there was a UK Marvel G1 story (around the time the Action Masters came out) about how the Constructicons had lost the ability to combine, and were experimenting to try and get it back.

I can see how Onslaught not being a combiner could be worked into a Botcon story. It's not unprecedented either; there was a UK Marvel G1 story (around the time the Action Masters came out) about how the Constructicons had lost the ability to combine, and were experimenting to try and get it back.

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Sure, like how Weirdwolf had had the Headmaster process reversed (and Dreadwind had lost his Powermaster bond with Hi-Test).

To me, a non-combining Onslaught is a little like an Astrotrain that's not a triple-changer. Oh well.